"He reflected how much, in the many years that had passed,
he had defined himself by his difference from his friends,
differences felt in that degree of detail which is obtained
by continuous careful talking."

Mum and I are at the beach, somewhere in
Marin.
She's
lounging in a deckchair, wearing sunglasses, very glam. A
plane swoops low over the city. Something falls from its
belly. I stare, uncomprehending, until the penny drops. I
pull Mum down and try to shield her body with mine. "Is
this another one of your silly nuclear war nightmares?" she
asks, irritated. The fire sweeps towards us across the
water and burns the clothes off my back.

I wake up, terrified, and go to work. It
turns
out
that
the
headquarters of Red Hat and Caldera have been destroyed by
atomic bombs. My coworkers and I discuss it, bewildered:
What was the point of that? Who will be next? Above our
office, the bomber engines grow louder.

I wake up, terrified, and go to school.
Russell
Crowe
tries
to seduce me, but I'm more interested in his lasagne.

Moonbase
University is holding its second session at 7pm this
Thursday
night, at Cellspace, on 2050
Bryant Street in the Mission. Dr Peter Cheeseman of NASA
Ames will be giving a talk on artificial intelligence. Our
first session - on space exploration, and also featuring
Peter - was great. Drop by if you're in the neighborhood.

"The ancients decorated their sarcophagi with symbols of
life and procreation, some of them even obscene. For the
ancients, in fact, the sacred and the obscene were very
often one and the same. Those people knew how to honor
death. Death is to be honored as the cradle of life, the
womb of renewal. Once separated from life, it becomes
grotesque, a wraith - or even worse. For as an independent
spiritual power, death is a very depraved force, whose
wicked attractions are very strong and without doubt can
cause the most abominable confusion of the human mind."

Auden, towards the end of his life, repudiated the poem I
quoted from last week. "The reason (artistic) I left
England and went to the US was precisely to stop
writing poems like "Sept 1st 1939", the most dishonest poem
I have ever written," he said. "A hang-over from the UK. It
takes time to cure oneself." And: "If, by memorability, you
mean a poem like "Sept 1st 1939", I pray to God that I
shall never be memorable again."

So my baby brother Alain turned 32
yesterday. 32! The fact is,
people are always as old as they were when I first met
them,
so that Jeremy is
permanently 24, and Kay will never
be
older than 10, and Alain is 19 months old. We're
practically twins.

He's wanted a proper American football for
ages,
and I
tried to buy one from the online NFL store last year, and
they screwed me around, so I didn't. So no link for them.
Anyway, I was at the
Seybold keynote this morning, and after I'd finished
absorbing fun facts about Apple (10.1 looks pretty slick),
I went into Copeland's Sports on Market and demanded the
finest football money could buy.

It was really expensive. But it's pretty fine. It's
a
Wilson,
which is good, apparently, and it's made out of
dead pig; also good, I'm told. "Designed for the serious
competitor/professional" it warns, in a handsome navy font
on cardboard of beaten gold. "To revitalize tacky grip,
buff with a stiff brush." Words to live by.

I'm planning to be in Queensland in January, so
I'll
give
it to him then. I thought about keeping it as a surprise,
but then, you know, I thought better of it. So I called.
Yay, international telecommunications. I love how you can
just punch in a number and be talking to your brother
13000km away.

"To revitalize tacky grip, buff with a stiff
brush," I
told
him.

"You bought me a blow-up doll!" he cried in
glee.

It's the right football!

"It's sitting on my desk, quietly glowing," I said.

"That's what it'll do when I get it," he said. "Except
I'll
make a few passes."

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

NOT, I'll not, carrion
comfort, Despair, not feast on
thee;
Not untwist -- slack they may be -- these last strands of
man
In me or, most weary, cry: 'I can no more.' I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.